


she was sleeping

by cellorocket



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Angst, F/M, Gen, Hallucinations, Romance, Survival Horror, Unreliable POVs, bitterly resurrecting minor characters since 2006, fluffy flashbacks probably?, hurt comfort gonna make ur nose bleed
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-27
Updated: 2016-12-07
Packaged: 2018-07-18 12:18:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7314961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cellorocket/pseuds/cellorocket
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>You dummy,</i> Hitch howled in his memory. <i>You're going to get yourself killed, you know that?  </i>  | Two soldiers try to find their way home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> lmao i fell in love with another doomed minor character and i refuse to accept his death.

Sunlight beat down on the back of his neck. It burned like a brand, marking him as it had then, before the charge. He had already died.

Deafening hoofbeats. Each stride of his horse echoed in his bones, rattling his teeth. The beast in the distance roared, or it might be his own thundering heartbeat roaring in his ears, stuttering in double time. It wound up a boulder in its hand. 

Antoine’s sobs cut through the commotion, and Marlowe thought briefly that somehow this was the right way to die, to make the most of these last moments, give the magnitude of oblivion its proper due. His own terror was wide-eyed, tearless. "Keep going!" he urged anyway. "Forward!"

They obeyed their horses, who knew the Commander's orders better.

He wanted to close his eyes. _You dummy,_ Hitch howled in his memory. _You're going to get yourself killed, you know that?_ She had been crying, and he’d closed his eyes to that too, pretended not to see and hardened his heart against her entreaties. Something had recoiled in him, a principle violated, a regard betrayed – he had thought, _stupidly_ , that they had finally understood each other, and come to a mutual understanding. Her hands beckoned him closer even as her words drove them apart, and he remembered that for a brief, unwilling moment he'd wanted to take those reaching hands and fold his fingers into the center of her palm. He remembers that now, here at the edge of his life.

Dust on the wind. A swell of it, stinging their cheeks, their eyes. His cloak whipped behind him, tugging at his neck. He remembered her room as it had been: blankets bunched to her chin, a haphazard stack of books and scraps of silly notes scattered across her desk, a letter without an address, nameless and naked. Motes of dust danced in the light, pouring in from the open window. She was sleeping, he knew. How good that was.

Behind him someone screamed, and the stones came raining down. Another hissing wave of dust washed over them, drowned them. 

His horse shrieked, the charge faltered; something warm and fleshy splattered his cheek. Dust and dirt, blood in his mouth, in his eyes; the sunlight burned him to the bone. White hot, keen as a razor. His grandfather pressed a timepiece into his palm like a secret; his sister hopped onto his back and declared she will be an actress, just watch; Hitch balanced atop a low brick wall with her arms spread wide and laughed and laughed, and it was like a song unfolding, a banner unfurling, a quick lash of warmth in a grey world.

~

Antoine stared up at the sky and took small, jerky breaths. Clouds rolled past, slow and fat, like the tufty down of his baba’s hair caught in a breeze. The sounds were finally farther away.  Every now and then he could feel the earth rumble and ripple beneath his back, but it carried with it no sound. The field was red, and silent; and he could smell the blood.

Maybe the Titans would see him lying among the corpses and think he was dead too. He hoped they would. He prayed. He would lay here for days if it meant they would pass him over, in the muck and piss and viscera, like the cowering failure he was.

But the clouds passed and no Titans came. Soon even the rumbling faded, and his breath untangled and grew slow, nearly calm, if not for the desperate pulsing of his heart. His thoughts buzzed, twitched at the edge of his senses. It would be stupid to stay here, he realized. They would hear him breathing. Struggling upright, he stumbled over his tattered cloak and cast his gaze over the field, bringing a hand to shade his eyes.  

After lying in the sun, the bodies had begun to stink. Some had been crushed completely by massive boulders – their suffering had ended in a dark instant, just as the sun was blotted out. He saw a girl whose chest had been caved in by a rock the size of a fist, where it sat dead and center like an ancient jewel. Almost half had been killed when their horses fell, folded like contortionists, their faces twisted and grotesque.

He knew he should look for survivors, but the longer he lingered under the flat daylight the more he grew certain the Titans would find him and finish what the charge had failed to do. He was marked for death – he was going to die no matter what he did. He knew that, he knew it, he should have known it all along. A shuddery little sob caught in his throat.

 _Don’t you start crying again_. He flinched as if the voice had spoken aloud.

He wandered among the dead for a long time, stripped of purpose. The Commander had been among the first to fall, and Captain Levi was nowhere in sight. His friends lay in pieces, his comrades shattered and broken. They had failed. He was the only one left.

In the distance a horse trotted agitated circles, tossing its head as it spiraled away. Automatically Antoine moved toward it, stumbling before breaking into a clumsy sprint. He could hardly process his luck, or even recognize it as such – it was just another grim feature of the field. His boot caught over a rock, a root  – some blind, nameless appendage – and he sprawled hard, smacking his forehead against the ground. Dirt filled his mouth, and he struggled upright, spat it out. Get to the horse, each punch heartbeat commanded. Get to the horse and go home.

But the rock gurgled.

No, not a rock – a whole person. He didn’t dare believe – it was his own childish sobbing, the sad creation of a broken mind, some pathetic vestigial hope that had somehow survived their charge into hell. He had convinced himself of his idiocy when the survivor gurgled again, almost too quietly to be heard.

Antoine crawled over and rolled the body on its back. His hands shook. He was going to die, they were both going to die, none of this mattered. “Marlowe?”

He assembled the situation in pieces. Marlowe’s face was nearly unrecognizable beneath a layer of grime thick as a thumbnail; one eye was half-open and the other crusted shut, the brow above swollen and matted with blood and hair. He’d been struck by a hail of smaller pieces, as the largest had gouged a clean hole in his horse’s neck – red bloomed over the white of his shirt, nearly black above the wounds. When Antoine reached for him, his fingers brushed something meaty and wet.

 _His arm_ , Antoine thought distantly. 

Bile crawled up the back of his throat; he would have vomited if there had been anything left in his stomach. He remembered Marlowe saving him a gulp of water from his canteen, passing him an extra roll the night before, with the earnest kind of smile you saw sometimes on someone who entertained no delusions or artifice, especially not when it came to themselves. Abruptly Antoine was ashamed – if Marlowe woke up amid a field of pieces and parts, he would have looked for survivors, no matter how hopeless the search seemed. He would have turned over every corpse he could find before he left.

Mechanically, Antoine tore a clean strip from the bottom of his shirt and bandaged the stump the way he had learned in support training, folded and back, tucked up around, before unbuckling one of Marlowe’s belts and wrapping it tight over the makeshift tourniquet . He had already bled too much, Antoine knew; he wouldn’t last long, not even if he managed to catch the agitated horse in the distance and heave Marlowe on it – Marlowe, who was four inches taller and thirty pounds heavier. None of this mattered anyway; they were going to die. They were already dead, and this wouldn’t make a difference. He sobbed, and did it anyway.

“Come on,” he said, though Marlowe probably couldn’t hear him. “We’re leaving.”

~

_She was sleeping – she was always oversleeping, and this is why their superiors don’t take them seriously. Marlowe scowls at the top of her head, her mussed hair catching the dusty light like some twisted halo. Her collar is rumpled, boots scuffed and dull; worst of all there’s a splotch of something brown on her left jacket sleeve, probably last night’s aperitif. She can’t even be bothered to make herself presentable for patrol; why should he expect any more effort for an actual inspection?_

_“You’re late,” he hisses._

_She shrugs, flashing him a catlike grin. “They don’t care.”_

_“Of course they care. That’s the point of inspection.”_

_This time she actually rolls her eyes at him, as if he’s the stupid one._

_“It reflects badly on us all when you behave like a careless --!”_

_“Quiet! They’ll hear you!” Her voice is ripe with sarcasm._

Grey mist swirls before his eyes, blurred shapes slip in and out of his sight, accompanied by whispers. “…huh …H-hitch,” he slurs. “You’re … l—la …”

A face pushes through the fog, its lips moving, sliding, curling – shapes he doesn’t recognize. Words he doesn’t know.

“… huh … _huh_ …”

_You’re an idiot, she tells him later. You think this matters? No one gives a shit here, so long as you keep your fat nose out of their business. So cut the act, before you really piss someone off. Her eyes glow green in the dark, her mouth a sharp, unsmiling slash. She’s misunderstood him, and he refuses to entertain the possibly that he’d misunderstood her – the root of her reaction, the reason for its weight._

_He decides that he doesn’t care what she does, and he never will._


	2. Chapter 2

Antoine took a slow breath, then another. He willed his heart to calm, and only whimpered a little when it wouldn’t. There was no time for this, and it didn’t matter anyway.

He lurched upright and rifled desperately thorough the saddlebag, shifting as the horse tossed her head. “Hey, hey,” he whispered, partly to himself, stroking her neck. “Easy.” Two red flares remained, and beneath a layer of oilcloth were three rolls of linen, a skein, and a few crumbling squares of hardtack. He shook the skein before taking a sniff, twitching the abrasive stink of grain alcohol out of his nose. No water. They would have to do without for now.

The ground shuddered beneath his feet.

~

_Two days later and he still can’t meet her eye._ _It’s somehow appropriate that he’s been paired with Hitch for patrol on the east side again; an entire day spent bracing himself for whatever humiliation she’ll heap on the pile of his shame. He’ll be ready for it, whatever it happens to be. He doesn’t care anyway._

_“Don’t your shoulders hurt?” she asks after a long while._

_There it is. “They’re fine.”_

_“I just mean you’ve been hunching around for the last hour. You must have knots the size of walnuts.”_

_His shoulders drop, roll back. “You should be paying attention to patrol.”_

_“Why? Nothing’s happening.”_

_“You pay attention so you know when something_ is _happening,” he says, as if explaining the concept to a child._

_“Yawn.” She shoots him a smug grin, one of those infuriating expressions that makes him feel like a sideshow in an exhibit, some entertaining creature one marvels at for a time before moving on._

The face dips into view, fogged features sharpening – blue eyes, or green? A snub of a nose, curly hair streaked to the bloody brow with sweat and dirt. Marlowe almost recognizes him, but the face shifts and flickers to another’s until he is dizzy from it. He doesn’t know, he doesn’t know anything. Mist presses against his eyes, and the face slips away.

“We’re leaving,” says this shifting companion. “Alright?” Chattering teeth, trembling hands, a half-swallowed sob. He wraps something soft around Marlowe’s neck, and things hurt less for a while.

_He wishes she’d stop looking at him. Hoping that she’d keep her mouth shut is a wasted effort._

_“You know, there’s something I still don’t understand.”_

_“There’s probably a lot you don’t understand.”_

_She kicks at his heels. “Hey! That’s not a very nice way to talk to your_ savior _, now is it?”_

_Annoyance would suit another better, but shame coils in his stomach, heats the back of his neck. His temper has made him cruel. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”_

_He’s afraid she’ll laugh, tease him for his sincerity or contrition when she hadn’t been sincere herself, but instead she blinks up at him once, twice, before recovering. “Yeah, you better be sorry! Next time I won’t stick my neck out so far, if you’re gonna be like that.”_

_He regards her for a long moment, frowning. “Why did you in the first place?”_

_“Hey, hey. I was asking the questions, remember?”_

_“You didn’t ask me anything. You just said you were going to.”_

_She eyes him irritably. “Picky.”_

_“I’d call it accurate.”_

_She turns away, kicking at a loose pebble in the street; it skitters over the cobbles before smacking the side of a grocery. Her fingers tighten on the rifle strap. “I – “_

             Hey … can you take my hand? N-no … with your other hand. That’s it – we’re gonna stand up now, o-okay? Don’t make that sound, they’ll – god. Oh god. Oh god.

_What, was I just gonna let them beat you to death in the middle of a street or something? In broad daylight, with people watching? That’d just be a whole lot of trouble for everyone. Geez, Marlowe. Don’t you know anything?_

              Put your arm around me. That’s right, you c-can do it. I’ll do the walking. H-ha. Alright? We’re almost there.

_Hey, why don’t you give Annie the third degree, huh? She stuck her neck out too. Yeah, that’s what I thought._

              Grab her mane. No, grab – p-please don’t, I can’t – please – okay, that’s it. Hold on. H-hold on tight, okay?

_He absorbs her tirade in thoughtful silence, studying her expression as it shifted from discomfort to ire; her brows flattening, mouth curling. She’d have no reason to lie, would she? “Thank you.”_

_“What?”_

_“You intervened and I’m grateful. So, thank you.”_

_“Well ... you’re welcome. Think about that, next time you’re calling me scum.”_

They’re floating, then flying – the wind pushes insistently against them like a hand to the chest, holding them fast, binding them. He breathes deep and slow, feeling it settle in his stomach. The air makes him think of apples, crisp bite red white, a hint of winter on the edge of it. Someone holds him tightly from behind. When his head tips back, cushioned by the thick fabric, he sees a flash of gold.

“Look,” Antoine says. Marlowe doesn’t know where. “We’ll be back soon.”

_She kicks a pebble at him, smirking when it scruffs the toe of his boot. “You gonna let me ask my question now?”_

_“Will you stop – good god. Will you please stop?”_

_“Oh, ‘please’, huh? Well, I really have to now.”_

_“You would, if you possessed any common courtesy at all.”_

_“Boring.” With a little hop, she plants herself firmly in his path and cranes up at him, studying him as carefully as he’d studied her a moment before. Her eyes have little golden flecks in the green. “Why’d you bother?”_

_“What?”_

_“Sticking your nose in it. What did you think you were going to accomplish? Did you think they’d stop their shady deal, apologize and give it all back? Come on.”_

_He tries to shoulder away, but she marks him. “I – will you get out of the way?_ Please _.”_

_“There’s that please again. Tell me why. Do you even know?”_

_Of course he knows. This time he manages to weave around her, resuming his patrol at an irritated clip. “I was angry.”_

_“They weren’t doing anything to you. And you weren’t going to change anything by confronting them.”_

_“I know that.”_

_“So why?”_

_He rounds on her. “Because it’s not right! Do you understand? People struggle to pay their yearly taxes, and those taxes pay for our supplies. What our superiors do, it’s cheating them twice. And – and it’s wrong! Do you understand that? This isn’t how the military should be! We’re supposed to protect the people and preserve order, we’re not supposed to be thieves and thugs, taking whatever we want because we can!” He trails off, breathing hard, his heart pounding so furiously he thinks for a wild second that she’ll be able to hear it. “It’s not right, and I’m going to stop it someday.”_

_This time she doesn’t laugh._


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one references some old RP threads I did with @julystorms about a year ago

They made it to a low wooded hill by nightfall, some distance north. Not a Titan in sight. The gold dappled trees rustled furtively in the wind like whispers crawling on the back of his neck. Antoine shuddered; those trees would mask the sound of approaching danger, he knew it, he knew it for sure. With a huff of breath, he reached up and hauled Marlowe off the horse, staggering, nearly collapsing under his weight before settling him awkwardly onto the ground and tucking the ends of his cloak around his shivering body. He tried not to look at the makeshift bandage he’d made on the field, already soaked through. A bird screeched, bursting out of the leaves.

It would be cold tonight, and they would need to move on after dark.  He needed to be quick.

Nearly convulsing with fear, he struck a flint – once, twice, scraped his knuckle when his knee slipped on the wet bracken. Quickly, quickly – he shouldn’t have waited this long, infection must have already set in by now.  A bead of sweat trickled down his back.

Marlowe let out a low moan through his clenched teeth, head flopping to one side, and struggled weakly against his wrapping. As he struck a flare of sparks over the kindling, Antoine launched into something that would soothe pain and nightmares and his own rattling heartbeat, anything: “Squad Leader Hange said – h-ha. Did you know we’re not the only ones to do this?” His breath came in short, shallow gasps. “She said there were – ha. That it happened three other times in the last five years, soldiers getting separated and finding their way back. She said, you know? So we can do it too.”

She said, she said. What did it matter what Squad Leader Hange had told them before they left? She was dead, some ruined corpse in the ruins of Shiganshina with the rest of the Survey Corps. She could have been lying, anyway. Or just plain wrong. Separated from the rest of his regiment, the space between Shiganshina and Trost seems to have flattened, stretched to impossibly distant corners. They were lucky to have even gotten this far; it was too much to expect for them to make it all the way home. _Don’t be an idiot_ , he coached himself, teeth chattering. _Don’t be stupid._ _None of this matters._

Even here, Squad Leader Hange’s lectures echoed in his thoughts; her steady stream of speculation like a beam of light cutting through thick fog. “I bet it was your Thunder Spear belt, it pulled tight when you fell,” he said on a shivering breath, pushing aside Marlowe’s cloak with unsteady hands, and it was as if she said it. “It wasn’t bleeding that much when I found you, I bet that’s why. Maybe that’s – maybe that’s what happened in the first place. It’s not so bad, it won’t be so bad. Look, it’s not bleeding hardly at all anymore. You’ll be fine.”

_Why are you lying?_

But when he pushed aside the scraps of cloth, he found that it was almost true; the bleeding had stopped save for sluggish oozing around the ruined skin, a flash of white in the reddened mess, but the smell – his stomach twisted hard, and he retched. He hadn’t eaten in so long.

Marlowe moaned again, good eyelid fluttering. “This will hurt, it’ll hurt, I’m sorry I’m sorry,” Antoine chanted. _Don’t drop the alcohol_ , he thought, and willed his shuddering hands to be still. _Don’t drop it, don’t mess up, don’t --_

_~_

_Marlowe hunches at his desk with hands threaded through his hair, shivering. In his memory, the streets are slick with blood, and wet heat radiates from the cobbles; bodies in piles, bodies in halves, bodies with dead faces staring through him. Even in the safety of his room he can’t banish them; he wonders if they suffered, and how long they stared at the battling Titans with fear frozen in their limbs, until the stones fell._

_More people have died than they can catalogue and lay to rest in one day, so they will return to the streets tomorrow and resume their work. He knows that he must, that it’s his duty and he can’t shirk his duty just because it’s unpleasant or upsetting. It’s the least those dead deserve, since the Military Police failed to protect them. It’s the least they can do; the very least, and never enough._

_He wishes Boris was here – the simple presence of someone else in this stifling room would help, at least a little. His thoughts can't bounce off the empty walls with someone else taking up space, making noise that he could focus on, providing irritants that would distract him. But Boris is on night shift, and Marlowe is alone – staring holes in his desk, fingers twitching over the worn cover of his favorite book._

_Three quick raps on his door shatters the silence; he starts, fountain pen leaping from his shaking fingers and clattering onto the floor. “Marlowe?” Even muffled, he recognizes the voice._

“…huh … Hitch …?” The voice echoes; above, a canopy of fire twists in the wind, fire in his chest, beneath his tongue. Shivering branches like arms spread wide to the red-streaked sky. He is caught between worlds; the flashes of light and sound that assault his senses, and the quieter place beneath, the refuge in dreaming. But slowly it crawls, seeps into his chest, and he can’t breathe, he can’t breathe –

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” says the voice, shivering with the trees. Something white-hot lances up his elbow, a burning bone crammed in tight, though there’s no room, nothing left. An animal shrieks; guttural keening rattles from behind a cage of teeth, clenched so hard his jaw aches.

_“Marlowe?”_

_He stands laboriously, legs trembling.  “I’m coming. Give me a moment.” Drawing a deep breath, he struggles to rearrange his fraught expression into something polite, but he knows it’s a futile effort. She’s looking for a distraction too, and her method is to tease and torment him over nonsense, to find some aspect of his character that she deems ridiculous enough to mock with that implacable catlike grin. And it’s not as if he can scrub away the circles slung beneath his eyes, gently smooth the exhaustion away. It’s not as if he can hide._

_He opens the door to an unprecedented sight; she’s wearing a loose shirt and pants, and her hair is hopelessly mussed, sticking out in a dozen random directions, but that’s not what staggers him. Her eyes are glassy, rimmed with red; she holds one elbow and looks at their feet, her shoulders curling inward. And he knows it on sight, knows without even asking; the same fraught shame that lives in his own heart._

_Had she been crying?_

_“Can I hang out here for a little while?” she asks – trying to sound the same as always, but her voice cracks._

_Pity steals his breath. “Of – of course.” He steps aside and she crosses the threshold, a waft of sweetness following in her wake. Her hair, he realizes; she’d washed it. With a polite gesture, he offers her a seat at his desk before folding himself in his bunk, ducking to keep from smacking his head on the low beam. She would have laughed at that, and he regrets that he didn’t, almost._

_“You know, this is exactly what I expected,” she says, grinning. “I could eat dinner off your floor. And look at this, look at your desk.” She swipes a finger along the wood, showing him the lack of dust. “Didn’t even get a splinter. Did you buff the wood too?”_

_“It’s not important,” he mutters._

_“Ha! You totally did.”_

_“I like things to be clean and orderly,” he says with a little frown. “It’s an improvement from the pile of filth you call a room.”_

_“Oh come on, don’t be like that. I think it’s nice, for your information.” She crosses her legs and leans closer, her grin widening. “Probably a lot of work, though.”_

_“It does take some effort to maintain, yes.”_

_“I bet if you gave it a rest you’d have more time to talk to people. Make friends, get to know your comrades. I bet you wouldn’t hate them so much if you did.”_

_“I don’t hate them,” he says after a moment. “I just don’t like them.”_

_“Big difference there …”_

_“Well, there is. Dislike isn’t the same as hatred; you don’t throw around that kind of sentiment lightly.”_

_“_ You _don’t,” she clarifies._

_“No. I don’t.”_

_She turns away with a mysterious smile, and studies the neat pile of books on his desk. He can only stare at her with increasing incredulity. He’d expected at least a few minutes of berating for such an admission, but rather her attention is completely captured by the titles; she traces the spine of his oldest book, worrying a loose thread of binding between her slim fingers._

_“You know, Marlowe … I would never have pegged you for a fan of serials,” she says, tipping one of the books from its spot. “I thought it’d be all Law, Economics, Very Important Things, etcetera.”_

_“I do have some of that, if you want to read it.”_

_She snorts. “Oh, yeah. Sure. Let me get right on that.”_

_“If you’re just going to mock me –“_

_“No, no! I just think its sweet, that you like regular people stuff too.”_

_“What’s that supposed to mean?”_

_“Just … regular people stuff! You know poring over tedious theory on whatever the hell economic model is the right way to do things now, or the intricacies of the law and how bad it is when it comes to actual justice, that’s not normal people stuff. No one does that. Hardly anyone does that,” she clarifies at his look. “But you know, reading silly stories about knights and their lady loves, that’s pretty normal.”_

_He considers her, long enough that she fidgets under the scrutiny of his gaze. “How do you know what that one is about?”_

_“Oh, well – geez, don’t give me that smug look.”_

_“There’s no smug look.”_

_“Well, I’m looking right at your smug idiot face, and I’m telling you it’s smug. Knock it out.”_

_He tries and fails. For once the tables have turned; she’s inadvertently revealed an aspect of her character she would have preferred not to, and now it’s in his hands, to do with what he will. He swallows a grin. “I’m not smug.”_

_“Ugh. Yeah, you already know, I’ve read them too. Like I said, it’s_ normal people _stuff.”_

_“Right, because you’re a normal person. Of course.”_

_Her eyes narrow. “What are you getting at?”_

_“Have you considered that it’s not a ‘normal people’ thing at all? It’s just normal for you because you like it too.”_

_“Impossible. I’m clearly normal. You know, **scum**.” The grin turns predatory. “Isn’t that what you said?” _

_He ignores the barb. “Whenever I go to the bookshop, this section is always deserted. The dust is thick enough to choke on; so bad that my eyes sting for the rest of the day. Which you’ve teased me about, I seem to recall. Now that I think about it, Mrs. Müller hasn’t sold more than six copies of this particular serial over the last year … you know, I could ask her very nicely and she’d tell me, it’s true –“_

_“That’s not – that’s –“_

_“But from what I remember, it does seem to be as if I’m not the only regular customer.”_

_She eyes him reproachfully. “You’re very clever, we get it.”_

_“So …”_

_“Fine, dammit. I like these dumb things too.” She pulls one off the shelf, tipping it into her waiting hands. A cloud of dust billows out from the opened pages; illuminated by the candlelight, beams of spun gold. It catches in her hair too, and the effect is careless and lovely, completely unintentional. She won’t see it, is unaware of it; she tugs the book into her lap and starts to read, finger tracing her place in the story, actually mouthing the words along. A strand of hair comes loose from behind her ear, and he watches it dangle in her face, growing more irritated the longer she leaves it._

_She notices his stare. “What?!”_

_“Nothing, it just surprised me. I didn’t know you read at all.”_

_She rolls her eyes at him. “I_ do _know how to read, Marlowe.”_

_“I know that, of course,” he replies, for once untouched by her reaction. “I just didn’t know you liked to.”_

_He can hardly wrap his head around it; that he could share his favorite hobby with the most unlikely person, who up until this moment seemed more interested in the good food they eat and the easy lives they live, day after day._

_“Well, geez,” she says, flicking some dust at him, and for the first time her smile is completely genuine. “What better way to soak up some free hours, right?”_

_He can’t help smiling a little, either. “That’s the idea.”_

_~_

_“No, no, no. Stop. You can’t tell me that was your favorite part!”_

_He stares at her reprovingly. “It was heartbreaking.”_

_“Right, because you have one.”_

_The reprove deepens, almost to a forced degree, until her resolve crumbles._

_“Ah! Alright, I’m sorry, geez. I just thought you’d pick something a little more … I don’t know! Powerful! Flashy! Something with importance. Not something completely bullshit.”_

_“It was important,” Marlowe says, feeling a little wrong-footed. “He laid his master’s shield at the sepulcher, and thanked him for teaching him to listen, and to watch. He thanked him for his wisdom and kept his vigil for the entire night.”_

_“But – but his master was the --!”_

_“What does that have to do with it?”_

_“He betrayed Gaelgan!”_

_“He did.”_

_“So he should have dumped his lying two-faced sack of bones in the river, let the fish eat him.”_

_“Gaelgan kept his honor,” Marlowe insists. “That’s the whole point. That’s the climax of the whole book.”_

_‘Are you kidding me? It’s when Gaelgan defeats his master,_ obviously _! That was awesome.”_

_“It was tragic!”_

_“Are you kidding me? I cheered the whole time. I couldn’t wait for that old hypocrite to get it in the face. Get fucked, you rotten asshole!”_

_Marlowe is scandalized to the core. “It was the culmination of their campaign against each other, years and years of bouts in the shadows, bouts in sunlight, with countless dead behind them all, and they all come to this moment, and all Gaelgan sees is an old man weary of war, the old man who raised him and taught him how to do good. And there’s no savor in victory, or at what they’d become. I could hardly get through that part.”_

_Hitch blinks at him, eyes wide, before dropping her gaze to the book in her hands. “That’s not as fun.”_

_“It wasn’t supposed to be fun.”_

_“It was when you could just hate the evil bad guy villain, who never did anything good or confusing.”_

_“It’d be a pretty boring story.”_

_“Yeah, I guess. Man. Now I’m probably going to get all choked up at that stupid vigil thing. That used to just make me mad.”_

_“It’s heartbreaking,” he says again, gently._

_“That dumbass,” she grouses, pushing the book away. “Half the stuff in that book could have been avoided if he’d just been smart about it, but nooo he’s gotta do things the Right way, and woe betide anyone who tries to stop him! Except it always was the other way around. He’d get the shit kicked out of him more often than not for that nonsense. Is that why you like him so much, Marlowe?”_

_His brows furrow. “You’re very funny.”_

_“Oh, don’t get bent out of shape.” Before he can say anything, she pushes out of the seat and clambers into his bunk, perching next to him and crossing her ankles. “I guess there’s something to be said for a guy that makes the effort.”_

_“That’s one way to put it.”_

_She snorts, rubbing the corner of her mouth with a loose thumb. “You’re a funny guy, Marlowe.”_

_“What?”_

_“Nothing, I just – I didn’t think you’d do something like this either, you know? You’re all surprised I do it, well right back at you, weirdo. I thought I’d knock and find you in here doing math problems or some crap.”_

_“Not normal people things?” he asks, masking the tease in a flat tone._

_“Oh, ha ha, you jerk. Real funny. I see what you did there.”_

_“You were saying?”_

_She shoots him a look, and it makes him smile. “It’s just kind of nice to find out you’re not a golem or something. All this pressed corners, exact schedules stuff, it makes you seem like an automaton.”_

_“Was that really a serious concern.”_

_“It might have been! You should really hear yourself sometimes. The day they put you in charge is the last day any of us ever get to sleep again.”_

_“Oh, you’ll still be allowed to sleep,” he said sweetly. “Encouraged. Obviously, you wouldn’t be able to perform your duties as well as we’d expect if you’re half dead from exhaustion.”_

_“Yeesh, Marlowe! You know you sound like an evil magistrate, right? Good lord …”_

_“I don’t sound like anything.”_

_“Anyway … yeah, it’s nice. That you’re a big nerd who likes serials. I bet you saved your pennies when you were a kid. Cup or hatbox?”_

_His expression flattens. “Jar.”_

_“Yeah, I thought so. More secure, seems like a Marlowe thing. It’s adorable, by the way. So you saved your pennies and perused through your first serials, and lo and behold!_ Alaine the Bold! _How many times have you reread that thing, anyway?”_

_“I don’t really remember,” he admits. “At least ten, I’d guess.”_

_“See, that’s adorable.”_

_He turns a sharp gaze on her. “How many times have_ you _read it? Don’t lie.”_

_“Me?! Lie?! I’ve never been so offended in my entire life! I ought to smack you, sir.”_

_“Hitch.”_

_“God, I don’t know! Who keeps track of that stuff?”_

_“You expected me to.”_

_“Fine, dammit!” She’s falls silent, and he leans closer – his mounting curiosity nearly physical, burgeoning in his chest. Why would she have to be ashamed of it? “Oh, I don’t know, maybe … twenty times.”_

_“So many!”_

_“Look, it was one of five books I had at home, okay? I got pretty bored! And it just happened to be the best one. So everybody wins.”_

_“Why did you have only five books?”_

_“Oh, well, Mom would bring them home every once in a while, whenever we had a little extra to spare for it.”_

_Understanding slowly dawns as the quiet expands between them. She seems uncomfortable suddenly, upset that she revealed so much of her life, but it was a small window into the person she is, a person he is curious about, above all else. “It is the best one,” he agrees finally._

_“Like I was saying. It’s just nice. You’re a normal person.”_

_“Well, you’re wrong, unfortunately.”_

_“I am, huh.”_

_“We established people don’t like those kinds of serials. You’re not a normal person.”_

_“Nah, nah, this is terrible. This cannot stand. Maybe … you’re a little bit normal, and I’m a little bit abnormal. I think that fits, what do you say?”_

_A little bit normal … it wasn’t bad, he remembers thinking. Talking with her about books, about the stories they loved, sharing a close space. It wasn’t that bad._

_~_

_Curfew bell sounds just as he pushes a book into her hands, the third in the series they both liked. “Just make sure you give it back to me in the same condition,” he warns._

_But she doesn’t move. She stands in the doorway with shoulders curled, head bowed – suddenly, without any warning, she is as she’d been hours before, on the verge. “What’s wrong?” he asks her._

_She wraps her arms around herself, shivering. “N-nothing. Ha … just, it’s kinda weird. My room.”_

_Cold seeps down the back of his neck. They hadn’t found Annie’s body today … maybe they would have to pull her from a building tomorrow, some shattered pile of rubble, whatever was left of her. He shivers too._

_“It’s dumb, I know it’s dumb. You’d probably jump at the chance to have no roommate, huh?”_

_He looks at his upturned palms. “Not like that.”_

_“This is—this is so stupid,” she says from behind her hands. “She didn’t even like me that much.”_

_“I don’t think she liked anyone much.”_

_“She liked you.”_

_“What?”_

_She shakes her head at his surprise. “Of course she did. What do you think that little lecture was all about. She wouldn’t’ve bothered if she didn’t like you at least a little – she’d just go on letting you act like a moron, getting your face bashed in because you can’t keep your mouth shut.”_

_It makes a weird kind of sense; regardless, it’s not something Marlowe would accept as hearsay. More pressing was Hitch and her empty room, Annie’s things right where she’d left it days ago, before she disappeared._

_“Maybe I’ll have to bag her up tomorrow,” Hitch says in a hollow voice, and it stalls the breath in his chest. Suddenly, more than anything he’s ever wanted, he wants to slowly fold her into his arms and hold her; because it's the right thing to do, he tells himself, though it doesn't feel like an obligation, watching her shoulders slump. The need is so visceral and immediate that it’s all Marlowe can do to keep his arms locked at his sides._

_He is stubborn, in the face of this sudden madness; with great control, he lifts one hand and rests it on her shoulder, heavy enough for it to mean support. "_ _You won’t have to do it alone.”_

_~_

Antoine lay on his back and looked up at the stars through the leaves. He was breathing hard; each inhale pillowed in the bottom of his stomach, until he thought he might drown on air. Marlowe sprawled at his side, his bandaged arm resting gently on his hip. After hours of grotesque, desperate stitching, Antoine had managed to make a serviceable field stump, packing it with sawdust and wrapping it with clean linen. Bloodied bandages littered the grass around them like streamers from a parade, the ones he knew from summer.

 _Get up, get up_ , the panicked voice commanded. Antoine couldn’t move; he could barely breathe, but he knew the titans would smell the blood and find them, and it would be over.

Groaning with his screaming muscles, he hobbled around the campsite and snatched the bloodstained rags off the ground before tossing them into the fire. A cascade of orange sparks shot up into the night, and with a huff Antoine fell back into the dirt, watching the stars again. His eyes grew heavy. He should eat, drink some water, check on Marlowe and water their horse. He should load everything up and keep riding, fast through the night, knowing that most of the Titans would be at rest and they could make better distance. North was safety – food, and beds, and a real healer, one who could fix Marlowe’s arm and treat the gash on his head, and all the other little wounds. North was a place to rest.

He would need to put out the fire soon …


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dedicated to carol for her (belated) birthday

Leaves whispered. A cold breeze clung to his face. The world was grey now, hard as slate; when he breathed, the taste of the air scraped down his raw throat, pooling in his empty gut. He was hollow, cavernous; if someone rapped their knuckles against his chest, an echo would be the only reply.

Slowly, Marlowe opened his eyes. A canopy of shadowed green rustled above him, gilded with orange, like glimmering scales in firelight. Leaves, he realized after a moment. Leaves overhead. He was in a forest.

_A forest … Hitch ambles ahead, disappearing behind a rustling bush, and he hurries after her. Somehow, she’s the one always pulling ahead, casting a smirk over her shoulder. Unfair that leisure should outstrip purpose. Unjust._

Pain threaded through the fog. He was empty, but his arm burned. Floating, unconnected to anything, twisting in an increasing wind; he burned.

He tried to remember what happened to him …

~

There had been a battle. Maybe not even that; there had been a charge, and it was necessary. That’s what they all told themselves; that it was necessary, that it was required, that it would be made meaningful by those they left behind. He might have disagreed; he couldn’t remember. But it had been necessary. It was all they could do.

Light shimmered over the impossible flatness of the land, and they charged, a legion of fools dancing in a frying pan. They burned under the merciless gaze of the sun.

He closed his eyes again. His right elbow throbbed, propped against his hip. Hell was fire and shadow, his father had raged once, hell was a pit of ice for traitors, but Marlowe had learned the truth; hell was a hopeless fight, a meaningless death -- hell was the sound of screams in open sunlight.

But he was in a forest now. The field was far behind.

~

A huffy breath, and something trembled against his side. He couldn’t lift his head enough to see what it was, but when he turned a sleeping face met his; Antoine, though for a moment it had been someone else. Dirt and blood smudged his cheeks, and his eyes were rimmed with red. He looked raw, too. He could have been dead if not for those trembling breaths, brow wrinkling. A bad dream.

He burned. Pain edged his muffled thoughts, as if it belonging to another body, one only marginally connected to his own. His elbow buzzed, the bone rattling within. Was Antoine burning?

_Sweat beads on his brow. They’ve been scouting for the entire morning, and even in the forest the heat drapes around their shoulders like a solicitous drunk, sliding its hands over every inch of exposed skin, slithering through fabric. He won’t complain, though Hitch complains enough for them both._

_“Could they have maybe picked a better time to be traitors,” she grouses. “Why not spring? What’s wrong with spring? Everything’s sunny but cool at the same time. We could comb this dump without sweating our skin off. I think I deserve that much.”_

_“I’m sure what you deserve is the foremost of their concerns,” Marlowe says dryly._

_“Good thing, too, since I deserve a lot. Nice house, good food, and a handsome butler that adores me utterly. Make that three handsome butlers. One of them is a chef and every meal he makes is an expression of how deeply he loves me, and every day he_ toils _in the hope that I’ll finally notice him. Alas, I never do. The food is too delicious to notice anything else.”_

_Far be it from him to get in the way of her fun – the harmless sort, anyway. “Sounds like you’ve thought a lot about it.”_

_“Is that a note of jealousy I detect?” The prospect seems to amuse her. “Don’t worry, Marlowe; maybe I’ll let you wash the dishes.”_

_“I’ll have to pass on that kind offer.”_

_She surprises him by looking a little hurt, though her expression shifts so quickly that he thinks he must have imagined it. “Well, fine. Be that way. You don’t get to eat any of Handsome Butler No.3’s amazing cooking.”_

_“Would he even share? I thought these meals were supposed to be love letters to you.”_

_She smirks at him. “I could be persuaded to share if you started being nicer to me.” But she looks thrilled anyway, perhaps because he’s humoring her whimsy. A part of him likes it sometimes – her proclivity toward flights of fancy. Like a story unfolding before his eyes._

_But they’re on duty, and their task today is of the utmost importance. “Come on,” he says, facing the humid gloom. “Pay attention.”_

_She doesn’t argue._

That couldn’t be right. She said something, or she flashed him an insouciant smirk, or rolled her eyes. He sifted through the fog for what happened – her face as it had been that day, a touchstone, a springboard. She couldn’t shut up once she got started. Maybe that was his fault too. He couldn’t shut up either.

~

His mouth was so dry. Tongue thick and swollen, welded to the roof of his mouth. Each breath like a bellows up his scorched throat. _You’re going to get yourself killed, you know that?_ He tried to push himself upright but pain gripped him tight between its teeth, worried him like a bone. He knew it, then; when he lifted his arm the weight of it was wrong, too light, a foreign object welded onto his shoulder. Pieces and parts, a hollow man. What else had they left behind?

_It doesn’t sit right with him, what they’re doing; it doesn’t make sense. They have their orders and he means to see them out, but …_

_“Don’t you think it’s strange?”_

_She turns, tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. “Hm?”_

_“Don’t you think it’s strange that the Survey Corps would kill civilians and then go into hiding?” It spools out of him; the uncertainty he swallowed, the incongruities. “Their whole branch is dedicated to humanity’s survival. They give up their lives for it.”_

_“No.” Her reply is sharp as a razor, and it surprises him; the intensity of her reaction. She’s always surprising him. “Don’t you remember what they did to Stohess? Not so hard for me to believe they’d keep at it.”_

_“But they stopped the Titans from destroying the Wall,” he muses. “Why would they bother if they were going to turn around and kill innocent people? Why would they sign themselves up for almost certain death if they didn’t care about people? It doesn’t fit.”_

_“Maybe they hate the crybabies that hide behind the Walls instead of doing something about it, like they do.  Maybe they think those crybabies don’t deserve to benefit from their work.”_

_“That doesn’t make sense.”_

_“Sure it does. I’d probably feel that way, if I was one of them. If had to go out and almost get eaten every month for a bunch of ungrateful jerks.”_

_“But why would they sign up in the first place, if they didn’t care? Why would they risk it?”_

_“Maybe they don’t start out hating the crybabies. Bet it scrambles your brains, almost getting eaten every month. So, no. I don’t think it’s weird. I bet they had themselves a real big laugh over all us ungrateful jerks getting stomped on and eaten. What do they care? They’ve got more important things to do than give a crap about us. They’re fighting for_ Humanity _.” She turns away, staring hard into the gloom. “Bet they had a big laugh over those new Military Police recruits, working for three years to be the best of the best only to get stomped on a month later. You think her classmates even remember Annie? Maybe they laughed too.”_

_Understanding descends, slow and complete. “That would hard to forgive,” he says gently. Yet still he wonders. Maybe some of them are that bitter, but it’s not possible for all of them. It can’t be possible. And even if it is, that bitterness would reflect on their work. The same corruption that infests the Military Police would hamper the Survey Corps too; they’d take their funding and spend it on selfish desires, their expeditions would be perfunctory at best. Rebellion doesn’t serve those that exploit institutions. A known quantity is easier to manipulate._

_Hitch is quiet for a long time. “I don’t know what to do with all her stuff.”_

_~_

He slipped in and out. He was empty, he burned; if he tried to sit up again, his bones would rattle loud enough to wake the dead. The pain crested like a wave, pulling him under. He remembered as he had been – whole and stupid, so hopelessly stupid. And what now? Wasted, broken, useless. What could he do now? When he opened his eyes again, half his arm was gone. Again and again, starker each time.

 _You’re going to get yourself killed, you know that?_ He didn’t want to remember her tears.

~

_They’re kneeling in the mud. The borrowed clothing doesn’t fit either of them right; the shirt is too tight around his wrists and chest, and hers is too loose around her neck, half slipping down her shoulder. She’s smaller than she looks in uniform, somehow. It worries him, like she hasn’t gotten enough to eat, despite how much she talks about it._

_Their captors regard them with identical faces; Levi and his disciples. Humanity’s Strongest. What does that mean, what does it really mean? Humanity’s Strongest Murderer. No, he doesn’t believe that. He could have killed them outright. He’s different than Marlowe’s superiors, their coldness is different. Not callous; merely tired._

_Hitch doesn’t care. Her regard might have burned a hole through sheet metal. “You know it’s all your fault, right?” she yells in Levi’s face. “All those people died because of you!”_

_He can only stare. What a liar, he thinks; she’d really fooled him. But he can’t unknow this; he can’t unsee the fervor in her eyes, the righteous rage. So familiar._

_“Oi!” he hisses at her, but it’s too late._

_~_

What a liar. He wanted to laugh, but it stalled in his chest, flat and lifeless. Like it was a game to hide the best parts of herself, make it a real challenge. He was so hopelessly stupid. How could you have forgotten? You’re going to get yourself killed, you know that?  You know that? You know that?

Of course he’d known. It had to be done anyway.

What a liar.

~

They’re wandering again. No, not wandering; they’re being led through the swirling green at knifepoint. Leaves touch their faces, whisper. Hitch is swallowed by her clothes. He’s choking in his. They might as well be naked.  What’s a worse way to die; suffocation or drowning?  It’s a stupid question; everyone knows they’re the same.

What was his name? The one who held the knife. Marlowe can only remember his voice, the wide slash of his smile as he advanced on them, too wide, matching eyes.

That’s not what he said! I don’t care what he said. The knife glimmers somehow, though sunlight trickles from cracks in the canopy of leaves, diffuse by the time it reaches them. He holds up his bound hands like a shield. He steps forward, angles Hitch behind. He begs. That’s not what he said, we won’t say anything, right Hitch? He doesn’t think about it. If he does nothing they’ll die and the government will go on exploiting and people will go on dying and she’ll never get her nice house with the handsome butlers. Everything will stay the same. 

The soldier drops his knife. And Marlowe lunges. He doesn’t even think about it.

And his throat is raw, somehow, though he hasn’t been screaming – Hitch, run! – and she does, and he’s so profoundly relieved that for once she listened to him, this last time, the time it mattered. He and the soldier grapple for the knife. A flash of a blade, those bladelike eyes. When he opens his eyes again she’s already gone. The leaves whisper, cold air touches his face. She’s gone. You’re going to get yourself killed you know that –

The first time he saw her she was lounging sideways in a chair, her ankles crossed and propped up on the table, and at his approach she’d tossed aside an airy gesture with careless arrogance. “Hitch Dreyse? We have patrol together.” Stuffed full of importance. Everything he did was important here. “That’s nice,” she’d said, rolling her eyes.

_What a liar._

That callow girl comes charging out of the treeline. That’s nice, she’d sneered. There’s a branch clenched between her hands. Her eyes burn, lips pulled back in a snarl; a feral creature. That’s nice. But that made no sense, she’d run, she’d been safe –

She draws back, a primal scream tearing out of her. A crack like a gunshot. That’s nice.

~

_What, was I just gonna let them beat you to death in the middle of a street or something? In broad daylight, with people watching? That’d just be a whole lot of trouble for everyone. What, was I just gonna let that asshole murder you in the middle of the crappy forest, when we’re supposed to be on patrol together? Finding the asshole Survey Corps? That’d just be a lot of trouble for me. Geez, Marlowe. Don’t you know anything?_

She couldn’t lie to him anymore. In that split second before the branch connected he’d seen her face over the soldier’s shoulder, and it had been vicious and terrified, and somehow resolute. It was more trouble to come back, to fight, to defend. It was more trouble to help someone who needed it.  

~

Gold edged the swirling green above his head. A horse whickered from across a great distance. The pain faded; each part of his body disconnected, drifting away – his hands, his eyes, everything he needed for fixing. He’d had goals once, plans; he’d made lists and studied and tried, he’d tried. Hitch peered over him, green edged with gold.

He couldn’t feel his face. He couldn’t open his eyes.

Cold settled. Pieces and parts drifted away too; the drive, the need. Something throbbed weakly in his chest. What was his name?

~

She was standing in his room. Fidgeting. What am I gonna do with all this stuff?

You can keep the books. Now you have more than five.

~

Rumbling. A shudder rippling.

~

It was the best time of my life, he told her. He wished he could tell her. We did something that mattered. 

_Stupid. You still can._

He smiled. It was a nice thought. _You_ can.

_What am I gonna do without you, huh? I don’t care about this stuff._

What a liar …

_Yeah, that’s right. I’m scum._

He shook his head. You came back.  How could she have forgotten? He half expected it now; for her to push aside that shade of golden green with arms tossed wide, as if to announce her presence. “You can’t get rid of me that easy,” she’d say with a clever grin, that smile with a secret beneath its tongue. Some kind of joke at his expense, probably, and she’d laugh right as soon as she said it. She was always laughing at her own jokes.


End file.
